Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogel bomb here with a classic brain Stuff episode
Speaker 1: from the vault. In today's we discussed the extremely weird
Speaker 1: world of the sea cucumber living, being so odd that
Speaker 1: I didn't even title the original episode how does it work?
Speaker 1: But rather what is it? Hey brain Stuff? Lauren vocal
Speaker 1: bomb here. You probably have a favorite sea cucumber and
Speaker 1: don't even know it. There are over one two hundred
Speaker 1: species in the world's oceans, so many that scientists are
Speaker 1: even confused about exactly how many there are, so there's
Speaker 1: probably one you'd like a lot. Some of them are
Speaker 1: decked out with the colors of your favorite sports team.
Speaker 1: Others look like somebody crocheted and oversized zucchini out of
Speaker 1: brown acrylic yarn. Even if you weren't particularly interested in
Speaker 1: a living sea cucumber, you might want to eat a
Speaker 1: dead one, or even take one as medicine. But if
Speaker 1: you don't know, already had to guess, would you bet?
Speaker 1: A se cucumber is an animal or a vegetable. They
Speaker 1: tend to come in tube form, like a sweet potato
Speaker 1: of the sea. They look vegetableish, but they are, in
Speaker 1: fact animals. The thing where we refer to them as
Speaker 1: cucumbers doesn't help. But they're a chinoderms, a phylum of
Speaker 1: marine animals that also includes starfish and sea urchins. Everybody
Speaker 1: in this hylum has what's called pentameral symmetry. They have
Speaker 1: five arms arranged around a center point. Of course, the
Speaker 1: kindest thing you can say about a se cucumber's physique
Speaker 1: is that it looks like a large hogi bun that
Speaker 1: you wouldn't want to eat. But though it more closely
Speaker 1: resembles a slug than a star, the five rows of
Speaker 1: tube feet that extend from its mouth to its anus
Speaker 1: give it the same basic layout as, say, a very
Speaker 1: elongated sea urchin that fell over on its side. Sea
Speaker 1: cucumbers have a different approach to reproduction than we do.
Speaker 1: They are usually born either male or female, but can
Speaker 1: change from one to the other during their lives. They
Speaker 1: communicate with each other by releasing hormone into the water,
Speaker 1: which is very similar to their style of reproduction. They
Speaker 1: expel their gam meats those are the egg and sperm
Speaker 1: cells out into the water column and just assume that
Speaker 1: they'll find each other, just as they assume that their
Speaker 1: friend got the hormone message that they left. Sea cucumbers
Speaker 1: eat tiny animals, particles of algae, and general sea junk
Speaker 1: out of the water using frilly tentacles that between meals
Speaker 1: they keep hidden in their mouths. What they have in
Speaker 1: the way of a brain is a ring of nerve
Speaker 1: cells around their mouth that tells them when it's time
Speaker 1: to eat, burrow into the sand, walk somewhere, or attack.
Speaker 1: And even though they look like tube socks filled with
Speaker 1: modeling clay, a c cucumber's defense mechanism is pretty terrifying.
Speaker 1: Imagine you're rough housing with a friend or sibling, or
Speaker 1: maybe taking a martial arts class. I'm willing to bet
Speaker 1: that your opponent's defense mechanism would not be to shoot
Speaker 1: out some of his respiratory organs at you out of
Speaker 1: his rear. But that's what sea cucumber combat looks like.
Speaker 1: They have the amazing ability to regenerate the organs that
Speaker 1: they lose this way. Some species spit out sticky string
Speaker 1: like spiderwebs to trip uper and snare their enemies, while
Speaker 1: others have a special toxin that kills or stun small
Speaker 1: animals don't mess with c cucumbers, but we do mess
Speaker 1: with C cucumbers all the time. Some species are at
Speaker 1: risk of extinction because in some Asian countries, C cucumbers
Speaker 1: are the ultimate luxury snack. Some tropical species can go
Speaker 1: for between ten dollars and six hundred dollars per kilogram
Speaker 1: dried in mainland China, and one type retails for three
Speaker 1: thousand dollars per kilo. C cucumbers are also used in
Speaker 1: Chinese medicine to treat a variety of ailments like muscle aging,
Speaker 1: compromised immune system, fatigue, and arthritis. Some even suggest they
Speaker 1: could be used in cancer treatments. The varieties that are
Speaker 1: used in food or medicine are becoming increasingly rare due
Speaker 1: to overfishing are over cucumbering. As a result. There are
Speaker 1: around three hundred and seventy seven species of sea cucumbers
Speaker 1: on the Red List of Threatened Species put out by
Speaker 1: the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Seven of these
Speaker 1: are classified as endangered and nine as vulnerable. But we
Speaker 1: need sea cucumbers. Not only are they economically important as
Speaker 1: a seafood, they are essential to ocean ecosystems. They are
Speaker 1: important filtration systems for watery habitats all over the world.
Speaker 1: In some places, in the deep ocean, vast herds of
Speaker 1: c cucumbers roam the ocean floor, gobbling up to tritus
Speaker 1: that drifted down from above. Plus some species provide vital
Speaker 1: services for other marine life. The pearl fish, for instance,
Speaker 1: takes refuge in a c cucumber's anus. Sometimes entire schools
Speaker 1: of pearlfish can find shelter in the rear end of
Speaker 1: a single sea cucumber. They usually don't mind much unless
Speaker 1: they're trying to use their anus to breathe at the moment.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, sea cucumbers breathe through their anuses. I forgot
Speaker 1: to mention that part. Today's episode is based on the
Speaker 1: article c cucumber, animal or vegetable on how stuffworks dot com,
Speaker 1: written by Jesslynshields. Brain Stuff is production of by Heart
Speaker 1: Radio in partnership with how stuffworks dot Com and is
Speaker 1: produced by Tyler Klang. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.